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View Full Version : Speeding Up Your Pentium 2 By 50%



lowik
02-14-2003, 04:19 PM
We all know that you really shouldn't try to run Windows XP on anything less that about a
Pentium 3 of some sort if you are out for speedy operations and amazing reaction times,
but for those of us with the good old Pentium 2's who want to see just how well
we can run XP, we have to tweak as much as we can where-ever we can. A real killer
to the system's performance is Windows Media Player. Although it may look desirable
and fancy with it's rounded off edges and 3rd-Dimensional appearance, the truth is,
it takes up a large amount of that precious processing power. All of these troubles however,
lead to one thing in particular with this 'new-look' over-rated music and video player...the Visualisations.
The look-great i'll admit but like a lot of software these days, it has no purpose.
If you run the task manager, and click the Performance tab along the top, you'll see
that when Windows Media Player is running and nothing else is active, it takes up around 50%
of the processors power. Once these visualisations are turned off,
it barely takes up 2-3% of the processors power, which leaves much more room
for other applications to work efficiently. Here's how to disable the feature:

1. Open Media Player
2. Make sure the Now Playing tab on the left is selected.
3. Click the View menu along the top.
4. Go down to Now Playing Tools
5. In the sub-menu that has just 'popped-out', uncheck Show Visualisation.

It's a very simple process and a little boring without the colorful graphics - but then no-one said computing was easy! :D

FuNkY CaPrIcOrN
02-15-2003, 09:00 AM
Originally posted by lowik@14 February 2003 - 11:19
We all know that you really shouldn't try to run Windows XP on anything less that about a
Pentium 3 of some sort if you are out for speedy operations and amazing reaction times,
but for those of us with the good old Pentium 2's who want to see just how well
we can run XP, we have to tweak as much as we can where-ever we can.
;) All I have is a Athlon 1.00 GHz and Windows XP Professional does fine for me.

"The Avatar Man"
02-15-2003, 09:09 AM
well athlon at 1.ghz is still considerably faster than a pentium 2

waisyarzi
02-17-2003, 01:58 PM
All i have is p3 500 and xp sucks

davinda
02-17-2003, 02:14 PM
Tip worked well on my Duron 950 + Windows ME. Cheers. :)

imported_computerfreak76
02-17-2003, 02:24 PM
i used to run winxp pro on my old celeron 533mhz with no problems.
the main thing is if you want to run winxp on an older system make sure you have at the very least 256mb of ram. i personally recommend no less than 384 mb.

AAA
02-17-2003, 06:03 PM
In almost every computer, at its default (if it's not tweaked), you can find at least 10 bottle necks that you can fix/tweak, because it's not only how much RAM or MHZ you've got.

A great place for tweaking XP: http://www.blackviper.com

I :wub: it